Boy Meets World: Rider Strong didn’t originally want to be associated with the series

Boy Meets World is a series beloved to those of us who grew up with it and continue to embrace it like a warm blanket of nostalgia. We can sometimes forget that those involved with the show may have had a different experience with it because the level of notoriety and fame that came along with it may have been challenging for its young cast to deal with. Rider Strong, who played the brooding-yet-sensitive Shawn Hunter on Boy Meets World is revisiting the series via the rewatch podcast Pod Meets World with his co-stars Danielle Fishel and Will Friedle, and he’s revealing, while they were in the thick of making the popular TGIF staple, he didn’t want to be associated with it.

During an interview with Insider to promote Pod Meets World, Strong said, “I did not want to be associated with the show, which is crazy to me now.” The actor explained that he was young, had a chip on his shoulder, and had this desire to be “anti-mainstream.”

“For years in my mid-teens, I didn’t watch the show. Whenever we were down from the show, I literally ran from Los Angeles and buried my head in the sand.”

Rider Strong began the show when he was about 14 years old, beginning a long run that lasted from 1993-2000. The actor admits he regrets not being more present and taking it all in while they were making it, but now, at 42, he does say he has gained much perspective from the show in hindsight.

“In retrospect I’m like, ‘That’s pretty bad. I should have just been happier and lived in the moment and been proud of the show and been proud of what we were doing. But instead, I don’t know, I had a real chip on my shoulder.”

Strong notes that much of what was going on had a lot to do with “adolescent insecurity,” but reliving the series with his castmates for the podcast allows him to revisit the show from a much better place. Strong embraced the show’s impact as he got older and even directed episodes of the 2010 Disney Channel spinoff Girl Meets World. He also appeared as Shawn Hunter in several episodes, which brought back Fishel’s Topanga Lawrence Matthews and Ben Savage’s Cory Matthews as they dealt with raising their teenage daughter Riley (Rowan Blanchard).

Life is about perspective, and I’m glad he got to a place to embrace the show and its legacy. It’s easy for us to hold these shows up on a pedestal, but we forget that it’s different for the talent that brought it to life. That’s not to say they’re not grateful, their experience is just different from the fan experience. But hey, at least Rider Strong is taking the time to look back at his time on Boy Meets World and come at it with a new perspective.